


Above the Rank and File

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Historical, Pre-Series, Tags May Change, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: The agents of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance are legend. They are one-person armies, chosen for their determination, their skill, their willingness to go above and beyond what would normally be asked of them to achieve the unachievable. But for every legend, there is a myth, a tale, a rumor. And behind every rumor, a flash of truth.And Gurji Beelo is nothing if not honest.





	

“The human embassy is upstairs, Commander Shepard.”

Shepard looked up from her intense study of the floor to see Councilor Valern watching her from a few paces away, leaning against a column with his arms folded. She couldn’t tell if he looked cross, or if that was just his default expression. Did all salarians have brows that naturally knit together in a resting position?

“Sorry, sir,” she said, pushing herself up from her seat on the edge of the decorative fountain near the salarian embassy. “Just needed to sit down for a minute. Catch my breath, and all. I’m sorry for disturbing you, sir.”

“You weren’t,” he drawled. “You make the interns nervous, and Ambassador Esheel is in a meeting, so I got conscripted. Aren’t you supposed to still be in the hospital?”

She shook her head. “Just released this morning.”

“Then _why are you here?”_ He bared his teeth at her, lips curling back in a gesture she wouldn’t have expected of a salarian. “You’re off-duty. Go _home_. The _Normandy_ , some apartment, I don’t care. Just get lost.”

He stood up straight and turned to stalk off before she could respond. A thought struck her, and she almost lunged after him. “Sir, wait!”

He paused, then pivoted to face her again. “You have thirty seconds.”

She tapped her leg, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. “All due respect, sir, I just… isn’t there something I can do? The Alliance hasn’t asked me to do any favors, and with Sovereign taken care of…”

Valern regarded her, then folded his arms again, tilting his head to one side. “You don’t know what to do with yourself now that your mission is over.”

Taptaptap. “Well… yeah.”

He sniffed. “Common reaction in new Spectres. Can’t remember a Spectre who _did_ know what to do, really. You all get so lost in the mission. Once it’s over, you’re like lost children.”

She blinked. “So, uh… Do I get a ‘get a hobby, Shepard’, or..?”

He considered, then made a noise that could have been a sigh. “I have work to do, but I’ll send you a set of coordinates. Meet me there tomorrow, an hour after the Presidium storefronts open. I’ll show you something.”

Shepard nodded, hoping her confusion wasn’t showing on her face. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded back to her, then made a dismissive gesture as his omni-tool lit up. “I have a call to take. Go… I don’t know, go terrorize C-Sec, or whatever it is you Spectres do for fun. As long as nobody dies and the Council doesn’t have to pay for property damage, I don’t care.”

She grinned and gave a little bow, but Valern was already walking away, tapping at his omni-tool and chattering so fast all her translator could pick out was “dalatrass.”

* * *

“What _is_ this place?”

It had taken Shepard a while to get the words out. The place Valern had taken her was simply too far beyond comprehension for her to do more than gape for the longest time, so big she couldn’t wrap her head around it even when it was staring her in the face. Cylindrical vaults were stacked as far as she could see, disappearing into the depths of the Citadel. There were walkways and lifts spiderwebbing throughout, with the occasional fleeting glimpse of armed guards patrolling.

Currently, she, Valern, and a one-horned, standoffish salarian Spectre Valern had brought along were standing in front of one of the vaults as Valern plugged in what she assumed were access codes. “Citadel Archives,” Valern told her without looking up. “Everything that’s ever happened, at any point in history, is recorded here. Even from before the Council itself. Most tightly-locked down place anywhere in the galaxy.”

Shepard furrowed her brow slightly. “Why?” Shouldn’t a mass archive be shared?

There was a quiet snort from off to her left, and she twisted to look at the other Spectre. She’d been almost entirely noiseless the entire time, speaking only to grunt her name (Taeja) and purpose for being there (bodyguard duty) before falling silent. Valern had said she was only a threat if you were, but Shepard wasn’t so sure.

She frowned at Taeja. “What?”

Taeja eyed her. “ _Everything_ is here. Open it to anyone, and even things best left buried will come to light.”

“Like your paycheck,” Valern grumbled, and Taeja’s lips curled in a wolfish grin.

The quiet beeping from the terminal ceased, and Shepard turned to watch as Valern took a step back, folding his arms as the vault slid open. “After you,” he sniffed.

Shepard hesitated, then cautiously entered the vault, only to pull up short a few steps in. The vault was much bigger than it looked; the center was a holo stage, big enough for probably half the Alliance parliament to make a call at once. The wall facing her was lined with vidscreen monitors, hooked up to an inconspicuous terminal at turian hip-level. The rest of the vault was neatly packed with display cases and cabinets, each carefully labeled in the galactic standard written language.

Two bodies shouldered their way past Shepard on either side, almost perfectly simultaneous, and Valern and Taeja wandered in. “Well, don’t just stand there,” Valern groused, motioning for her to move further in.

She hesitated, but curiosity won out over apprehension, and she moved to examine the nearest set of cabinets. _Known Descendants_ , said one. _Mission Reports, Part 3 (073 through 108)_ , boasted another. The one immediately below that one huffed, _Properly Filled-out Mission Reports_.

Shepard wondered if this was what _her_ file looked like, with a guilty voice in the back of her head reminding her that Udina had been reprimanding her about not properly filing her reports since Therum.

She glanced around the vault again, but Valern and Taeja weren’t interested in her. While Taeja lurked near a darkened display case, Valern fiddled at yet another terminal. “Uothwar Nacor Jaeto Srarsal Waraji Valern,” he said in response to an unseen prompt. “Representative to the Citadel Council for the Salarian Union. Two guests,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Scanning,” droned a VI. It didn’t sound quite like Avina, but Shepard guessed it was probably still based off an asari. “Please wait… Scan complete. Welcome, Councilor Valern. Welcome, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance agents Gurji and Shepard.”

Valern folded his arms and turned to face Shepard, expression unreadable. “So, Shepard,” he said, “what do you know about the Spectres? _Without_ telling me your job description, if you would.”

Her mind went blank. What? “Uh…” She frantically racked her brain, trying to remember the sparse information she’d learned over the years. She’d heard of their legend on the vids before, of course, and she’d tried to learn more, but there wasn’t a lot of time. “They were formed before the Krogan Rebellions, right? And they’ve been protecting the Council under the table ever since.”

He sniffed. “Correct. The Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel Council was formed in 693 of your human Common Era, with the recruitment of Gurji Beelo.”

Shepard blinked. “Gurji?” Wasn’t that what the VI had called Taeja?

Valern nodded. “Gurji.” He flicked his head in Taeja’s direction. “Taeja is Beelo’s hundred-twenty-times-great-granddaughter.”

Something clicked in Shepard’s head. “Sir,” she said slowly, “whose records are these?”

Valern gave a thin smile. “Take a guess.”

She swallowed. “Beelo’s,” she said. Her voice cracked on the last syllable, so she swallowed again and restarted. “I’d guess this is Gurji Beelo’s records.”

“Impressive,” Taeja rumbled.

“I told you she was intelligent, didn’t I?” Valern shook his head at her.

Her lip curled, but she said nothing. Shepard supposed she just didn’t want to get in a fight with someone who signed her paychecks.

Valern rolled his eyes, but turned back to Shepard. “Yes, this is Beelo’s vault,” he told her, eyes now narrowing to regard her carefully. “We’re going to have a little history lesson, Shepard.”

“Sir?”

He didn’t respond, turning and tapping a couple keys at the terminal behind him. The holo stage hummed, then flickered to life, displaying an asari and a salarian. “This is footage of the recruitment,” Valern informed her as the recording began to play. “There’s no less than three cults who want copies, but the Archives aren’t in the habit of sharing.”

“Shh,” Taeja hissed. She had stood up straight and moved a little closer in, eyes transfixed by the recording. Shepard could have sworn the look on her face was almost… reverence?

The recording, of course, was paying them no mind. “Desk job?” the salarian was saying, in response to something Shepard hadn’t gotten to hear. “No, thank you.”

“This is no desk job. Spectres will be the best of the best. They will operate with impunity, and answer only to the Council. You will be the first.”

* * *

Beelo blinked at the asari, long and slow. She didn’t look old enough to be a matriarch, and she certainly wasn’t the councilor. She fidgeted as she waited for every word out of his mouth, and her responses were impatient and curt. Hardly dedicated to what she was here for. Probably new to working with aliens, and definitely trying to curry favor with the councilor. So, a newbie ambassador.

 _Great_.

Still, regardless of the irritation placing it before him, the offer had merit. Do his current job, but with fewer obstructions, and the freedom to solve the problem as he saw fit, regardless of stupid things like “standard procedure” and “morals” and “Seer’s horns, _thirty fucking civilian lives, Beelo_.”

Okay, so in retrospect, _maybe_ he could have gotten most to safety and kept a couple volunteers for bait. But using the thirty right there was a _guarantee_ , while two or three volunteers wasn’t. It was a solid plan, whether the dalatrass liked it or not.

He had questions, and a lot of them. No salarian in their right mind walked into a deal without knowing as much as possible. Given, however, that he could be looking at the death penalty if the dalatrasses had their way…

“Now, that sounds like the best job offer in the galaxy,” he said finally. “Count me in.”

The ambassador nearly melted with relief. The mystery of why aliens were so open with their emotions eluded him constantly. “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll tell the councilor, and you’ll be out of here shortly.”

He leaned back, knitting his fingers together behind his head to cushion it against the wall. “Take your time,” he deadpanned. “It’s not like I’m going to die here, or anything.”

She didn’t respond, already hurrying off. _Politicians_. He tucked her face into his memory, making a note to learn her name eventually. If he was going to be working for the Council, he’d likely run into her again, and it was just so much easier to hate someone when you knew their name.

There was a knock on the door, right before it opened anyway, admitting the elcor guard who’d brought him to the meeting room in the first place. Xalettin, or something like that. “Please, do come in,” Beelo grumbled. “No, of course I don’t mind. Would you like some tea? How was your trip?”

“Annoyed: Watch your mouth,” Xalettin droned. “Impatiently: Let’s go, Gurji.”

“ _Beelo_ , my name is _Beelo_ ,” he snapped, getting to his feet. “I have three hundred and two siblings who are ‘Gurji.’”

“Irritated question: Do I look like I care?”

He bared his teeth, one hand twitching for a gun that was no longer there. It would be a lie to say this was his first stint in prison, though his previous stays had been when his age was a single digit and the water of the hatching ponds was still drying from his horns, but this was easily the first guard he _hated_.

Every now and then, it occurred to him that he hated an awful lot of people. Well, it wasn’t _his_ fault that so many of the galactic population were annoying, now, was it?

Inter-species prisons were different from the salarian ones he’d courted as a teenager on Sur’Kesh, he mused to himself as he was escorted back to his cell. Regardless of current occupants, everything had to be equipped to handle anything from a rail-thin salarian to a rampaging krogan. Energy fields hummed, ready to shock anyone who tried to breach them or tamper in any way. There was a panel at each, allowing the wardens to open the cell entirely or just a small port for delivering food.

Some cells were dark, to accommodate light-sensitive batarians and quarians. Some had multiple occupants, a few housed a lone pacing krogan. Beelo’s was shared with a deceptively sickly-looking batarian. Despite the gravity of his crime, the jailers considered him mostly harmless unarmed, so they’d lumped him in with Rothok Shad’derah, a simple con man who knew his way around close-combat weaponry.

Their mistake, but he wasn’t complaining.

Rothok was hanging upside-down from the upper bunk as Beelo was escorted in, doing crunches against the demands of gravity and common sense. He paused and hung straight down to look at Beelo, four eyes squinting against the harsh light. “Hey,” he said, turning his head to watch him walk in. “So who was it?”

Beelo didn’t answer, glowering at Xalettin until the cell was re-closed. “Some ambassador,” he said finally, baring his teeth at the warden’s retreating back. “The Council wants me for something, evidently.”

Rothok considered this, then shrugged and resumed his exercise. “So, what, you’re getting a stay of punishment?”

“Released.”

Rothok swung back down so quickly, his eyes widened for a brief moment as he almost fell off and struggled to stay up. _“What?”_

Beelo folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “I don’t know, some special forces type thing. Not military. She called it ‘Special Tactics and Reconnaissance.’”

Rothok’s upper eyes narrowed. “Sounds like spies.”

A shrug. “She said they’d answer only to the Council. Carry out special missions the regular elites can’t handle.”

“So, yeah. Spies.”

“I suppose so.” Beelo turned his head to watch the walkway. Across from their cell, an asari who’d never spoken a word to anyone was doing push-ups while her quarian cellmate kept count. “I don’t like it,” he added. “It’s too vague. No specific details at all about what the job entails, just ‘answer only to the Council.’ It feels like a trap.”

Rothok folded his arms across his chest, which looked admittedly very awkward considering he was still hanging upside-down. “So, you’re getting released, to do basically whatever you want, with the Council’s blessing, and you’re worried it’s too good to be true.”

“Yes, essentially.”

Beelo didn’t really understand batarians, but he liked Rothok. He perpetually looked on the verge of death by some horrifying illness, despite being in perfect health, and used that appearance to be overlooked and ignored until he had a knife in your chest. Clever, for an alien. A valuable ally, if he made it out of prison within Beelo’s lifetime. He didn’t even seem to mind prison, having cheerfully informed Beelo that this was leagues better than a Hegemony jail.

Now he hauled his torso back up to his knees, carefully swung his legs down, and dropped to the floor, then turned to face him, lower eyes blinking out of time with his upper set. “See, if you were batarian, I’d say you’re out of your mind,” he said. “Free ticket as far away from the shut-eyes on top as you can get. But you’re _not_ batarian, so… what’s up?”

Beelo’s mouth twitched in a brief consideration of a smile. “Council law doesn’t override the Union, only supersedes. If the dalatrasses have their way, I’m dead the second I set foot in salarian space. How do I know the Council will keep them away from me?”

Rothok shrugged. “That’s easy. Stay out of salarian space.”

“And if the Council disagrees?”

“That’s when you pull a Shad’derah and disappear.” He grinned, a needle-mouthed grimace that never failed to set Beelo’s gut squirming.

Beelo rolled his eyes, then slunk to the edge of the cell and peered towards the end of the hall as a door opened. “Company,” he mused. “Maybe you have a dentist appointment.”

Rothok snorted and came up next to him to see, all four eyes narrowed to slits again. “Nah, I stopped seeing dentists after I bit off the one’s hand.”

Beelo gave him a look, and he amended, “Okay, I didn’t bite it _off_ , but he _does_ have a nice bracelet of scar tissue now.”

“Charming.” He turned his attention back to the hall, narrowing his eyes as Xalettin and the asari in charge of the prison, a stern matriarch he’d only heard referred to as Ishrada, entered, flanked by a few armed officers and stalking down the rows of cells. He liked the asari a fair deal more than the elcor, but she unnerved him, with blood-violet markings that stood out against her seafoam-green skin and a face set in a permanent scowl. A good face for a head warden, really.

The pair came to a stop at the keypad controlling Beelo and Rothok’s cell. “Beelo Gurji,” Ishrada said stiffly, and he resisted the urge to correct her on the order of his name, “you’re being released.” She scoffed. “Bad idea, you ask me, but this comes from the Council.”

Beelo blinked slowly. Well, they’d gotten to _that_ faster than expected. Had they just had the order ready to go? “Good thing they didn’t ask _you_ , then, isn’t it?”

She scowled, and he smiled. Antagonizing people in authority was rarely a good idea, he knew, but considering the Council themselves had just freed him, she couldn’t touch him. He could afford a jab or two.

The energy field in front of the cell came down, and the officers’ weapons went up, all but one trained on Rothok. Immediately, Rothok put his hands up and backed further into the cell. “Hey, hey, don’t mind me, no escape attempts here. Not that stupid.”

Ishrada curled her lip at him, but otherwise didn’t respond. “Let’s go, Beelo. Council’s waiting.”

He blinked sympathetically down at Rothok, then wandered out into the hall. “Top-tier escort. Don’t I feel special.”

Ishrada sniffed and headed back towards the exit. “Don’t get cocky. Just because the Council lets you out, doesn’t mean you won’t get put right back in.”

“That’s assuming I’ll get caught.”

Ishrada scowled at him again. “I don’t like you, Gurji. I’ve got my eye on you.”

He just smiled thinly, which just deepened her scowl. Her frustration delighted him.

To his surprise, it wasn’t the ambassador from earlier waiting for him. Instead, a smooth-faced, reddish-brown salarian with minimalistic tattoos striping their face met their little party at the door to the release area, hands held so the long, draping sleeves of their beige robes looked more like a continuous loop of fabric.

Beelo blinked slowly, then folded his arms in front of his stomach, elbows at perfect right angles, and bowed with closed eyes. “Councilor,” he said, “I’m honored.”

 _A lie_ , his hypersonics whispered, and the councilor’s eyes narrowed at him. “Thank you, Warden,” he said, ice in his voice. “We’ll be taking our leave.”

Ishrada nodded and withdrew, taking the others with her. Before six heartbeats had passed, Beelo was alone with the councilor.

Unfortunately.

Councilor Rinmorn was a shrewd politician, according to the vids. The first male salarian councilor in ages, he’d only just been inducted a couple years prior. Rumors abounded of how he’d gotten the job, of course, especially once it came out that the dalatrass of his clan was none other than his sister. As could only be expected from a politician under such scrutiny, Rinmorn had a reputation for not liking _anybody_ , not even his colleagues. Rinmorn had no friends, and Beelo had no intention of being the first.

The councilor narrowed his eyes further at Beelo. “This _wasn’t_ my idea, just so you know,” he hissed. “A mass-endangering _terrorist_ is hardly an optimal choice for this order.”

“And yet, here I am,” Beelo mused, folding his arms and tilting his head to the right, a gesture that held little meaning to salarians but, he’d learned from Rothok, meant condescension to batarians. If he guessed right, Rinmorn would have learned something of batarian body language, and there was a chance he’d understand.

If he did, the councilor showed no sign. “The Council will be keeping this under wraps, of course,” he said, hypersonics making the air tremble with his venomous tone. “After what _you_ did, letting you out would hardly be good publicity. The dalatrasses would have _both_ our heads.”

Beelo narrowed his eyes. “Ah, well, Councilor, there would be where we disagree.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Beelo started to pace, not breaking eye contact. “If you want me to work for you, I want the dalatrasses off my trail. I have a criminal record, that’ll be trouble if I’m going to be investigating anything. It’ll have to go away. Sealed, wiped, whatever it takes.”

Rinmorn bristled. “You don’t get to make demands of the Council, _mara’nin-vai_ ,” he hissed.

“I do if you _really_ want my help,” he challenged, “unless this is just some Azen gambit for a political patsy, happy to do whatever you say as long as it keeps them out of jail?”

Rinmorn’s eyes were fire. “I will discuss it with Councilor Atrusas,” he ground out. “ _Until then_ , you will have to maintain a low profile, _whether you like it or not.”_

Beelo merely smiled, a lazy, slow thing that spread across his entire face in a way that had never failed to incense authority figures throughout his life. “Of course. I look forward to the Council’s decision.”

He was taking a risk by baiting a councilor, he knew. But he figured the murderous look in Rinmorn’s eyes was more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _mara'nin-vai_ : a salarian insult implying a "lesser" bloodline, suggesting there is nothing of note in one's blood
> 
> I've always been really fascinated with the idea of Spectres, and I recently latched onto Gurji Beelo, the first one ever. What was it like, being the very first of a new agency? What kind of person would and could do his job? What sort of things happened during the early years of Special Tactics? It seemed like a lot of untapped potential (maybe a good comic or something), so I kept ruminating on it and coming back to the idea until eventually it just... spawned this.
> 
> Because of how the fic is being told (as a series of flashbacks from archived recordings), there will be intro bits at the start of each chapter with Shepard, Valern, and Taeja in the vault, then cut back to what Beelo's up to.


End file.
